Council to operate Maria Place recycling centre
Published on 13 June 2024
The Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre Trust, which operates the recycling centre on Maria Place, has decided to wind up the Trust and Whanganui District Council will operate the centre from Monday 24 June.
The recycling centre will continue to be open to the community as it has since 2014.
The council’s general manager community, property and places, Sarah O’Hagan, would like to thank the Trust for their excellent work over the last decade.
She says establishing a Resource Recovery Centre was the brainchild of Sustainable Whanganui, a local charity set up to assist the community with practical solutions for sustainability, and the Trust was set up to run the centre.
Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre Trust chair, Ken Mair, says the Trust has been made up of five trustees who he acknowledges as having been passionate and dedicated to the success of the centre over the last ten years.
Ken Mair says dedicated recyclers in the community have made great use of the resource recovery centre since it opened in 2014.
“We are proud of the effort the Resource Recovery Centre staff have put into providing this service that’s made an important impact on looking after te taiao – the natural environment – over the last ten years.”
Sarah O’Hagan says with kerbside recycling starting in urban Whanganui in July this year, it was clear to both the Trust and the council that it’s a good time for the council to start operating the centre.
She says when the kerbside collection is underway the volume of recyclables processed through the centre will be significantly lower, with recycling picked up from kerbsides and aggregated before going to recycling facilities around the country, but it’s important that the resource recovery centre remains open to the public for several reasons.
“For a start, we need to provide a recycling drop-off facility for people in the rural community who live outside the kerbside collection zone.
“Also, there will be times when those in the urban area need to drop recycling in because they have a volume of recycling which won’t fit into their three kerbside crates, say because they’ve held an event or party.
“Lastly, the centre is an important drop-off point for green waste and other materials that can’t be collected kerbside like car seats, car and household batteries, and e-waste.”
“Going forward we will continue look at Whanganui’s waste minimisation needs to ensure we are well-positioned to play our part in looking after the environment in coming years.”
Three week partial closure
Part of the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre will be closed for three weeks from Monday, 1 July – this is to allow for repairs to the baling shed roof after the fire last December. During this time you won’t be able to drop off paper, cardboard and all plastics. All other materials – including glass, steel tins, aluminium cans, green waste and batteries – can still be dropped off at this time.